The present invention relates to systems that provide in-room entertainment at hotels and other lodging facilities. In particular, the invention is an improved system for delivery of entertainment content such as movies to individual hotel sites.
The past two decades have seen the wide scale introduction of entertainment systems in hotels and other lodging facilities. These systems provide a variety of services to the guest through the guest room television. The services typically include regular off-air television programs, pay-per-view movies, Internet access, and guest services such as video shopping and video checkout.
A typical hotel entertainment system contains a head end, a distribution system, and guest terminals located in each of the guest rooms. The head end includes devices to generate entertainment content such as movies and video games, as well as devices to provide Internet access and generate interactive menus and other services. The head end also includes modulators and video switching equipment necessary to place the television signals from the various sources on to the appropriate channels for transmission through the distribution system to the guest terminals. A host computer coordinates operation of the entertainment system by receiving key stroke information from the guest terminals and controlling operations of various sources of television signals so that the guest receives the entertainment or services which he or she has requested.
Typically, lodging entertainment systems are not owned by the hotel, but rather are owned by a vendor who provides the head end equipment, and the guest terminals (including the television, remote control, game controller, keyboard, and associated control circuitry which interfaces the television to the distribution system).
The entertainment system vendor owns the equipment and pays for the installation of the system in the lodging facility. The vendor must also provide the content, such as movies, games, and cable/satellite programming. The vendor receives compensation based upon amounts the hotel collects from the guest for pay-per-view movies, games, Internet access, and other services for which charges are made. The hotel usually receives a percentage of the guest charges, and the sources of content, such as motion picture studios and game program vendors, receive royalties for movies and games which are viewed and played by guest.
In the past, most of the video sources for pay-per-view movies in hotel entertainment systems have been video cassette players pre-loaded with videotapes of movies. Although the early systems offered only a small number of movies (typically six or eight) at scheduled playing times, the widespread adoption of video-on-demand movie offerings has resulted in the need for many more video tapes and video cassette players. Typical systems include from about 16 to more than 20 different movie offerings.
The use of video cassette players and video tapes requires substantial tape duplication resources, and a service organization to deliver new tapes to each site, remove old or damaged tapes, and set up the system with a new lineup of movie offerings. This has, in the past, involved a monthly visit from service personnel to replace or change over movies. If tapes break or malfunction, additional service visits are required.
More recently, the development of very large mass memories and digital video server technology has offered an alternative to the use of arrays of video cassette players and videotapes. The digital server stores movies and other digital content in an encoded format such as MPEG-2 and includes decoders for decoding the digital data to create the audio and video television signals which are supplied to the guest terminal through the distribution system.
While the use of digital servers in a lodging entertainment system offers a number of advantages, the need for monthly service calls is not eliminated. Service personnel still must visit each site with a storage medium containing the content for the next month. This may be stored, for example, on a replaceable disk drive which is swapped each month by the service person. Duplication of storage media for each site is also required, just like in the systems that require the use of videotapes.
There is a continuing need for a system of delivering entertainment content to individual sites that reduces the number of visits required by service personnel to maintain conventional entertainment systems.